I know what you mean, and you're absolutely right, but it's a different sort of rail. Linearity doesn't bother me. I don't mind being herded from place to place because I play RPGs primarily for their story; I want to see what happens next. We don't really have the technology to create compelling "open stories" right now, and so I'm not all that interested in wandering around. When a game tries to create an open story, it ends up being excessively modular, to the point where it's not fun anymore. Every quest area is self contained, things you do affect other things in only the most minimal of fashions, etc. I'm far more interested in the primary storyline. Some sidequests are nice, but I enjoy them most when they're still attached and related to the main quest, and are made available at the proper time.

What I'm fairly adamant about, though, is having control over my character, and I feel as if Western RPGs take that away. Oftentimes they give you the illusion of choice, but, like I was saying in my last post, you're not really changing anything at all. Or at least, not as much. If I decide I want to be an all-powerful god storming through the land, I can't. If a boss annoys me and I want revenge (shut up, this is how I play games ) I can't train for an hour or two, and then go rip him to pieces. No, my every interaction with the world is carefully controlled. Stay within these lines, and you'll be fine. *makes a face*



I don't necessarily like random battles, just available battles. I'm fine with systems that show the monsters in the regular world, and let you dodge around them. Or rooms with limited random battles that respawn once you leave. Or specific training areas that you can go to in order to level up. That kind of thing. I don't necessarily care how it's implemented, I just like having control over my character's stats, spells (if I want to spend ten hours leveling up, why shouldn't I be able to get Ultimate_spell_x in the first level?), and so on. Western RPGs dole out goodies little by little, and you'll get them at roughly the same point in the game no matter what you do, or how hard you work. Again, I speak in generalizations; there are exceptions.



I played through Fallout 3 twice, and did most of the DLC. I never felt like you COULD be over leveled, or over equipped. I did all the sidequests I could find before moving on with the story, and I hit the levelcap well before the end of the game. Even doing everything I could to improve my character, I still had to play cautiously, be worried about charging into new areas, feel out the "bosses" (such as they were), and so on. Oh, and on my second playthrough, I basically went through the main plot as fast as I could. True, I was a couple levels lower in each area than I was with my first character, but I never noticed a significant difference in how I approached the world. My actions did not (in my mind) matter.



JRPGs definitely have some grinding. I prefer games that you can make it through without grinding (just by fighting the necessary battles) but where you can vastly increase your character in certain areas if you so desire. I enjoy having the option to grind when I want to, for reasons I explained above. Also, I somewhat agree with your assessment; Western RPGs are focused more on knowledge and skill, with stats not mattering much. This is precisely why I say that they're more "Action" than "RPG." You run, you gun, you explore, and you can make some choices, but overall, your character is taken care of for you.



No, you're right, I'm not saying that my opinions define the only correct implementation of RPG. I just feel like there's very little difference between an action game where you control a character who runs around doing stuff, and a Western RPG, where you do basically the same thing. To me, the RPG aspect means "here is your character; do whatever you want with him." Meaningful character customization is key, and Western RPGs generally limit that in order to control the encounters.

As to the Witcher, I've played that, and it's somewhere in between the two extremes. There's still a lot of doling out; skills aren't accessible until point_x, it's very difficult to level up beyond where the game wants you to be, etc. It's not as bad as some games, but it's still very limiting. No matter what you do, you can only acquire about 3/4 of the game's skills/spells. Level up for 10 hours, and the last few bosses will still be either easy, medium, or hard, depending on the difficulty setting you select. Did I mention I hate selectable difficulties? I hate those too.

Thanks for your response.